Newsarama has a nice little preview up of this week's episode, looks pretty spiffy. I picked up the Season 1 set today, and I have to say that the packaging is kind of nifty. I haven't gotten a chance to watch any of the discs yet, but there is a nice booklet in there with some concept art/etc. that is pretty nice. The book is the "case", sort of similar to the deluxe edition of Indy and the Crystal Skull if anyone picked that up.

Are there any special promotions with this release with retailer incentives or do you get the exact same thing no matter where you buy it? Borders has it for $32 with free shipping, but I noticed it's only $30 at Target.

And simply the best, over the top battle sequences ever depicted in an animated program that I can ever remember. I had read beforehand how they wanted to capture that Battle of Omaha Beach feel and man they nailed it. Utter carnage!

SO MUCH outstanding detail...from the wise-ass crack about how the bugs couldn't shoot straight right before the gunship exploded to the Clone Trooper gunning down the still flaming Geonosian warrior on that rocky precipice.

It just absolutely does not get any better than this for me. I LOVE the tactical stuff, seeing how they deploy the heavy equipment, finally getting to see some of these awesome vehicles in full action, the strategy from the heavy cruisers all the way down to the infantry.

I just hope we get a lot more of the same for the next 3 episodes in this arc.

Oh, and next week - Barriss Offee!!!

Logged

Slice you open like a tauntaun, faster than the Autobahn, Or a motorbike in Tron, do the deed and then I'm gone.

A lot of WW2 overtones in this episode though... Lots of warring. This is I think easily my favorite episode thus far though, as I have the same love of the war/tactical/military aspect of the series over everything else. And that was played to the hilt tonight. Well done.

This is easily in my top five favorite episodes so far! Very cool stuff! Really liked Ki-Adi and his "65" line at the end. I loved seeing the Geonosians again; any organic Separatists fighting the clones is cool to see and I hope there's more of that in the series. And of course, all the battling was terrific. Awesome episode!

That was a fun episode I caught the replay Sunday night and found it to be really one of the most intense combat scenes that I think has ever been done in Star Wars. If I have any gripe, I thought the episode moved too quickly, but the combat sequences were great. They were certainly inspired by many of the invasions in WWII and seemed to greatly resemble the Omaha beach landings, as other members have noted. I'm glad to see the creators of the CW series do not skimp on depecting the true brutality of warfare and that the show is done in a manner that even older viewers can enjoy.

Liked the episode overall, lots of new trooper designs (Ki Adi Mundi troops looked a bit like early Galactic Marines to me...).

I had one bit of confusion, I know it was to add suspense and all, but if this mission was critical enough where they had to devote 4 Jedi, what else was going on on Geonosis that they couldn't spare a squadron of fighters? You'd think the Yularen would recognize the importance that is being placed on this particular mission and divert air support.

They were certainly inspired by many of the invasions in WWII and seemed to greatly resemble the Omaha beach landings, as other members have noted.

Watch the Episode Commentary and you'll find that's the feel they were going for with the battle scenes.

Agreed...

There was a lot more than "just shooting" there IMO.

First, there was strategy... a surprisingly large ammount of it. We're shown from the onset that there was a set goal, and that the Jedi were trying to learn from past experiences on Geonosis by trying a 3-pronged attack led by 3 Jedi to break the first goal. It's a lot like WW2 beach landings, and a lot went wrong (I think that's why Palps has his cameo obviously).

We're taken into that world of strategy early on but they kept it surprisingly cohesive throughout then. I was shocked! Anakin's down first, his collapsed wave forces the next one into chaos and so on. Kenobi finally makes it in the last wave, and is the most hurt and in need of support. The other two are left to "wade in" from further back and chaos ensues amidst all 3 waves of a plan that was relatively simple at first.

I like that they walked through the entire thing in holo-form first and actually showed the plan.

Second there's a certain parallel being drawn between the Geonosians, and the dedication an enemy can have... They were pretty feirce. They were superior to droids for certain. The Clones were meeting their match in some sense, I thought. They were showing a lot of fear throughout the episode. I got an "Imperial Japanese" feeling from the Geonosians... Loyal and deadly. The droids are played up as borderline retarded every episode but the Geonosians were definitely shown to be the opposite.

Third, I really felt there was story there on a subtle level... Anakin's anger for instance, at Obi-Wan not being there to support him. Anakin's blaming Obi-Wan, he's getting pissed, and it's not Obi's fault. He's clearly showing signs though that he's quick to judge, blame, and mistrust when he gets upset.

Also the "game"... Obi-Wan doesn't view war as a joke, or a game. He busts balls with Anakin a lot, but he clearly doesn't approve of he and Ahsoka devaluing the war into a game between the two of them. To Anakin it's like sport (killing), and I think that subconsciously disturbs Obi-Wan a little bit. It's perhaps an early warning sign they should've acknowledged. The series overall is pretty good about showing subtle things Anakin does that make him ultimately who he is. CW is really doing well in establishing Anakin's bad side. It's there but the war almost masks it. Obi bemoans it dragging on, Anakin turns it into a game and has "fun" during it. That's pretty good story telling really, I think.

I'm also digging Yularren's prickish side. He's gone from a random putz to a ruthless military leader with little concern for the men who do the fighting. Very Imperial. It's easy to see how he's promoted into the ISB later in his career.

If I had some complaints about the episode...

-I thought it was odd the Flamethrowers weren't brought up sooner in the tunnels, but that could've been to protect them too of course. There's easy enough explanations but flamethrowers are good for clearing out tunnels.

-The "wall" thing... I thought this was somewhat poorly designed. It looked like a damn without anything to hold back. ALmost like it was an afterthought, and just didn't get much effort put into its design.

-The final push... The rush into the shielded portion of their objective makes sense but it would've been neat had we seen them make that push into the shield with small walkers like AT-RT's helping the rush in or something. A bunch of guys running on foot almost seemed too easy, and again it seemed like they rushed this bit and something got cut out possibly explaining why they did it this way... I can buy it, I just thought it could've been spiffed up slightly. Maybe if episodes were longer.

This episode definitely was the antithesis of the last episode though... Last episode was all story, all development, and this episode was a lot of clone action. I like the attempt to balance though. And overall I really feel the story was there but a lot more subtle and more attuned to future events. This episode was kind of like the Rising Malevolence one in that it's clearly setting up larger things for next week. I really wish they'd do some hour-long ones sometime. I think they've got the tools to work with. It'd be real neat to see them incorporate an existing EU story of the CW into the storyline too, at some point.

Not much talk on Friday's episode... and honestly I can't blame anyone.

Besides the cliffhanger at the end there, it really wasn't terribly impressive... Barriss Offee and Ahsoka had neat tension that I felt like they just sort of let it peter out by the end of the episode... Disappointing. There were once again "Anakin's a possessive nutcase" overtones too, but I really felt Luminara's disinterest was kind of disturbing. There needed to be some pressing matter forcing that "Let it go" attitude.

The "heavy tanks" were simply retarded. Not something I liked at all... Suddenly the Separatists can create a piece of armor that is impervious to anything the Republic tosses at it? Stuff can be tough but not indestructable. That dallied too much into the realm of "This week's super weapon threatening the Republic's destruction is..........." kind of stuff. They've been better about that in this series than that, and just seemed to half-ass that plot-line.

Plus like all other tanks, sabers cut them apart, so why would these be somehow superior against heavy artillery or AT-TE's? Just too "super weapon" for me, and disappointed me. That shows a lack of writing creativity.

I'm hoping for a rebound next episode... Anxious to see if we're moving off Geonosis too, anytime soon. It doesn't appear so. Next week's looked to have potential for coolness though, and Geonosians are freaky for sure. I like the way they look in the series too. They're almost "cute" for some reason. I like the notion of playing up their "scary" nature though what with swooping in and nabbing you in the dark. There was a bit of that in other EU played up some, and it's neat to see it being played up a bit in the series.

This past week's episode just wasn't interesting though, to me. It was very much a character-developing one, but struck me as just more poorly thought-out than the Padme/Anakin episode a bit ago.